UTSW joins project to make whole eye transplants a reality

DALLAS – Dec. 03, 2024 – UT Southwestern Medical Center is part of a major undertaking that will bring together more than 40 scientists, doctors, and industry experts handpicked from around the country to make vision-restoring whole eye transplants a reality.

“We are pleased to be participants in this important trial that has the opportunity to advance transplantation science for the benefit of patients in need,” said Kevin (Kyung) Park, Ph.D., Professor of Ophthalmology and Neuroscience, who is leading the UT Southwestern site.

Jeffrey Goldberg, M.D., Ph.D., Blumenkranz Smead Professor and Chair of Ophthalmology at the Byers Eye Institute at Stanford University, will serve as principal investigator for the project. José-Alain Sahel, M.D., Professor and Chair of the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Pittsburgh, will co-direct the initiative with Dr. Goldberg.

“This group of people have been working for decades now on figuring out how to promote optic nerve regeneration and retinal neuron survival in glaucoma and other blinding diseases,” Dr. Goldberg said. “That positions this group of collaborators to be the best situated to take on optic nerve regeneration and neuronal cell survival in the context of eye transplant.”

The award of up to $56 million for the national project is from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) Transplantation of Human Eye Allografts (THEA) program. The awarded project title is Viability, Imaging, Surgical, Immunomodulation, Ocular preservation and Neuroregeneration (VISION) Strategies for Whole Eye Transplant – a reflection of the breadth of the collaboration assembled to solve such a complex challenge.

“Scientific breakthroughs are impossible without strong collaborations,” Dr. Sahel said. “By combining the deep knowledge about ophthalmology, tissue preservation and regeneration, immunology, and surgery of world-class scientists at Byers Eye Institute, University of Pittsburgh, and consortium members from top institutions, we are well positioned to set the foundational steps toward restoring vision using whole eye transplant.”

The biggest challenge the team will face is moving whole eye transplants from aesthetic to functional by figuring out how to regenerate the optic nerve, which connects the eye to the brain.

The ‘whole’ plan

The VISION for Whole Eye Transplant project is holistic in every sense of the word.

The team is made up of a potent mix of expertise and skill, which will be needed as they simultaneously advance and create cutting-edge medical devices, artificial intelligence integrations, new surgical techniques, regenerative medicine breakthroughs, and rejection mitigation. The group will work dynamically, sharing information in real time and pursuing the most promising leads.

Meticulous donor eye selection, advanced ocular imaging, and specialized logistics in organ procurement and preservation will also be critical for success, and collaborators on this team are already the established leaders in these key areas of transplant science. In the end, tailored post-care rehabilitation for eye recipients will also be needed to set patients on the right track.

Amid the technical details, accessibility plays a major role in the plan. 

While whole eye transplants are the north star of the three-phase, six-year project, the effort will undoubtedly bring with it more breakthroughs along the way, and that is just as exciting, Dr. Goldberg said.

“As we develop a series of new technologies that could be vision restorative in THEA and also in the many patients with glaucoma and other eye diseases, we’ll leverage all the proper channels to ensure new drugs, gene therapies, and devices can be accessible to all,” he said.

This research was, in part, funded by the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H). The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the United States Government.

About UT Southwestern Medical Center   

UT Southwestern, one of the nation’s premier academic medical centers, integrates pioneering biomedical research with exceptional clinical care and education. The institution’s faculty members have received six Nobel Prizes and include 25 members of the National Academy of Sciences, 24 members of the National Academy of Medicine, and 14 Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigators. The full-time faculty of more than 3,200 is responsible for groundbreaking medical advances and is committed to translating science-driven research quickly to new clinical treatments. UT Southwestern physicians provide care in more than 80 specialties to more than 120,000 hospitalized patients, more than 360,000 emergency room cases, and oversee nearly 5 million outpatient visits a year.